The Notebook: Why “Kiss Me” speaks to Laurence Mossman
For the Filipino-Kiwi actor playing Middle Noah, the song captures the innocence, awkwardness and feeling of being seen that come with first love.
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For the Filipino-Kiwi actor playing Middle Noah, the song captures the innocence, awkwardness and feeling of being seen that come with first love.
Laurence Mossman and Morissette as Middle Noah and Middle Allie during a rehearsal for Theatre Group Asia’s The Notebook: The Musical.
Hans Chua/TGA
For many audiences, The Notebook is inseparable from the 2004 film starring Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams, which was adapted from Nicholas Sparks’ 1996 novel. The story later became a stage musical, with music and lyrics by Ingrid Michaelson and a book by Bekah Brunstetter. Now, Theatre Group Asia is bringing the musical to Manila, with Laurence Mossman playing Middle Noah.
For Laurence Mossman, who plays Middle Noah in TGA’s The Notebook The Musical, one song captures a smaller, more intimate part of Noah and Allie’s story: the awkwardness and innocence of falling in love for the first time.
Asked which song from the musical he would use to describe his own love life, Mossman chose “Kiss Me,” performed by Young Allie and Young Noah during the summer they spend together at 17, before their separation.
“For me, the obvious one for a lot of people is the lyrics of ‘Kiss Me,’” Mossman said in an exclusive interview with DAILY TRIBUNE during one of the cast rehearsals.
“The youngest singers have the first two verses. It’s very innocent, and some of it is a bit funny because of the awkwardness of the situation when you first meet your first love and experience things with them.”
For Mossman, “Kiss Me” captures the awkwardness and excitement of first love, including the intimacy that comes with taking that first step together. Offstage, Mossman is in a relationship with Filipino singer, musical theater actress and dancer Kiara Dario, his former Miss Saigon co-star.
The song also speaks to the experience of two people discovering each other and learning what it means to feel seen and loved. “But the text is so pure in how they describe their relationship,” he said. “In that moment, they get to really talk about love and feeling seen and loved, which brings them to the rest of the song.”
“It’s so beautiful,” he added. “It’s such a beautiful way of describing that moment. I think a lot of people will relate to that.”
The song also gives audiences a glimpse of Noah and Allie before the years, separation and difficult choices that define the later parts of their story. In TGA’s musical, their relationship unfolds through three stages of life, with Benedix Ramos and Sheena Belarmino as Young Noah and Young Allie, Mossman and Morissette as their middle-aged counterparts, and Rody Vera and Celeste Legaspi as Older Noah and Older Allie.
Mossman’s Middle Noah carries the memory of that youthful connection into a much more complicated chapter of their lives. His reading of Noah is rooted in the idea that the person he fell for as a young man is still somewhere inside Allie, even after years have changed them both.
That is also what Mossman sees as Allie’s biggest red flag: presenting herself as someone she is not.
“Noah loves the true Allie — the Allie underneath,” he said. “The Allie who loves painting. That one. Not the rich-girl Allie who puts on nice, fancy clothes.”
For Mossman, Noah fell for the adventurous, strong and bold woman underneath the persona. When he sees Allie again years later, he senses that something has changed.
“He loves the one underneath: the adventurous one, the one who is very strong and bold,” he said. “So when he sees her after the 10 years, she’s not quite being herself. He’s not seeing her.”
He describes it as the strange experience of recognizing someone while feeling that the person behind the familiar face has changed.
“He’s kind of seeing someone who looks like Allie, but that’s not her because she’s changed,” Mossman said. “She’s putting on this kind of persona.”
Mossman brings considerable international theater experience to the role. A Filipino-Kiwi born in Auckland, he earned First-Class Honours in Music from the University of Otago before moving to Manila and establishing a career in the performing arts. He made his professional theater debut alongside Lea Salonga in Atlantis Theatrical’s Fun Home in 2016, then took on roles including Charlie Price in Kinky Boots, Young Ebenezer in A Christmas Carol and Sky in Mamma Mia!.
His most prominent international role came as Thuy in the international and Australian tour of Miss Saigon, including performances at the Sydney Opera House and the Manila leg of the tour. His screen credits include the ABS-CBN series Dolce Amore and the film Die Beautiful.
For Mossman, “Kiss Me” represents the beginning of the relationship he must carry into its later chapters as Middle Noah. It is the part of Noah and Allie’s story where love is still new, awkward and full of possibility.
And when the story eventually asks whether that love is worth fighting for, Mossman knows his answer.
“It’s not really dependent on the journey,” he said. “It’s dependent on the two people — the two people realizing that they found each other and that it was worth all that time, and the realization that this is your person.”
“You need to fight for love,” he added. “You need to fight for it. It might go away, but you hold on to hope.”
The Notebook: The Musical, the Broadway musical with music and lyrics by Ingrid Michaelson and book by Bekah Brunstetter, based on Nicholas Sparks’ novel, will have its international premiere in Manila. The Theatre Group Asia production is directed by Nicholas Polonio and runs from 3 to 20 September 2026 at the Samsung Performing Arts Theater in Circuit Makati. TGA is led by Artistic Director Clint Ramos, with Christopher Mohnani as Executive Director.
